Baião de dois
by Raquel Paz
- Instrumentation
- Cello, Cello
- Publisher
- Musica Brasilis (free download, licensed by the composer; CC BY-SA; ISMN 979-0-69653-451-4)
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About this piece
Raquel Paz, born in Igarassu, Pernambuco, in 1998, plays in the Orquestra Sinfônica do Recife and teaches viola and violin at the Conservatório Pernambucano de Música. She wrote Baião de dois, subtitled 'a mix of baião and samba', for the Duo Santoro, who gave its world premiere on their August–September 2025 tour of Rio de Janeiro state, the first edition of their 'O compositor é vivo!' series given over entirely to living Brazilian women composers. In the first movement, Saudoso, a slow, singing duet gives way to plucked chords and syncopated dance rhythms; the second, Enérgico, opens over a plucked bass line and builds to a 'tema baião de dois' in driving sixteenths, with passages played on the G string alone.
Technical overview
Two movements in 2/4 (quarter = 70 and 85), in three flats with many accidentals. Cello 2 reads tenor clef in the first movement; both parts shift up to 4th–5th position and use double stops, three-note pizzicato chords, a measured tremolo chord, trills and a sul G passage. The baião rhythms (dotted eighth-sixteenth, tied off-beats, accented sixteenth patterns) need a steady inner pulse, and the parts trade melody and accompaniment constantly.
Technical focus
- Accidentals
- Chords
- Dotted Rhythms
- Double Stops
- Ensemble Skills
- Pizzicato
- Shifting
- Staccato
- Syncopation
- Tempo Changes
- Tenor Clef